News
Experts’ dismissal of Tesla’s Full Self Driving push proves Elon Musk is still not taken seriously
Despite delays, Elon Musk remains optimistic that Tesla’s efforts to achieve Full Self Driving will bear fruit soon. This was highlighted in a statement during his appearance at the recently held 2020 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in China, where he noted that Tesla is closing in on “Level 5” functionalities. Experts in the field of automation beg to differ.
In a recent statement to Automotive News, Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at Guidehouse Insights (formerly Navigant Research) and Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke University, openly dismissed Tesla’s efforts to achieve full self driving. In a scathing rebuke, Abuelsamid described Musk’s targets as absurd. He also expressed his pessimism about Tesla’s approach to automation, which focuses on vision and artificial intelligence.
“The cars they are building will never be Level 5, period. It’s nonsense. He needs to shut up until he can deliver something. The premise of making highly automated systems on cameras alone is fundamentally flawed. Their approach to software doing end-to-end AI systems is almost certainly not going to work. I don’t believe it can work. AI is too brittle,” he said.
It should be noted that Abuelsamid recently published a study ranking companies that are currently pursuing autonomy. Similar to studies conducted by Guidehouse Insights when it was still operating as Navigant Research, Abuelsamid ranked Tesla dead last, even behind startups like Navya, which have limited real world driving data.
Abuelsamid’s sentiments were echoed by Missy Cummings, who also argued that there is no way that Tesla could achieve Level 5 autonomy with its vehicles. In a statement to KCBS Radio, Cummings noted that Elon Musk likely does not understand what Level 5 Automation really is. This is an interesting comment from the director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke University, considering that Waymo CEO John Krafcik noted last year that ultimately, “Level 5 is a bit of a myth.”
“There is no way, shape, or form the car is going to be Level 5. He doesn’t really understand what Level 5 is. I think what he means is Level 4, and he’s not even going to get Level 4. The perception systems don’t work well in weather conditions, with long shadows. We know the Tesla perception system, and the news is it’s a really bad system,” she remarked.
While there is some merit in criticizing the Tesla CEO for missing his targets with regards to the release of the electric car maker’s full self driving system, it seems far too careless to simply dismiss all the work that Tesla has accomplished over the years either. The company, after all, is gathering real world driving data at an unprecedented scale that’s unrivaled by companies like Waymo, and that matters much when it comes to training neural networks, as emphasized by ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Tesla’s vision based approach to autonomy has also gained support from notable names such as George Hotz, who believes that Tesla would eventually become the Apple of self driving cars.
It is unfortunate, but based on the dismissive and almost aggressive rebuke of Tesla’s efforts from the experts tapped by Automotive News, it appears there is still a general tendency to completely dismiss Elon Musk and his initiatives. Interestingly enough, these statements are pretty familiar to those who have followed the SpaceX and Tesla story over the years. It may be difficult to recall at this point, but there was a time when it was believed that landing the Falcon 9 first stage on land and an autonomous barge on the sea is impossible. There was also a time when the Model X was considered unbuildable.
Fortunately, Tesla and its CEO are a stubborn bunch, and it takes a lot more than skepticism to discourage the company. This is especially notable considering that Tesla is currently looking to roll out a massive rewrite of its Autopilot suite, which should take the company even closer to full self driving. Perhaps this time around, Elon Musk’s statements about Level 5 Autonomy may actually be pretty accurate, at least in terms of its features and timeframe.
“I’m extremely confident that level five or essentially complete autonomy will happen, and I think, will happen very quickly,” said Musk, answering another question. I think at Tesla, I feel like we are very close to level five autonomy. I think—I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year,” Musk said at the 2020 WAIC.
News
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
NASA just gave SpaceX a $946 million contract for three more astronaut missions through 2030.
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification covering three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, according to an announcement the agency published Friday. The award adds Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, bringing the agreement’s total value to $5.92 billion across 17 flights.
SpaceX confirmed the award on X, writing that it was excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the Space Station from Florida. The new missions cover ground, launch, in orbit, and return operations, along with cargo transport and a lifeboat capability while docked at the station, and the period of performance runs through 2030.
We’re excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch @NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the @Space_Station from Florida https://t.co/Qm16vVK9F3 pic.twitter.com/drg3s7GtuM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2026
The award follows a notice of intent NASA issued in May, when the agency first signaled it would purchase up to six additional post certification missions from SpaceX. Teslarati covered that filing at the time, noting NASA cited technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing as a driving factor. Friday’s contract modification locks in three of those six missions, with the remaining three left open for NASA to award later, potentially to Boeing if Starliner clears certification.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not flown an operational crew rotation mission for NASA. The spacecraft’s most recent crewed test flight in 2024 ended without the astronauts returning aboard Starliner, and the company has spent the time since working through thruster problems. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said this week that SpaceX is not retiring Crew Dragon today, for sure, while stopping short of committing to fly it past 2030.
Crew-12 is currently docked at the space station, and NASA has said Crew-13 is targeting a launch in the coming weeks. The newly awarded Crew-15 through Crew-17 missions extend SpaceX’s role as NASA’s primary way of getting astronauts to and from orbit well into the back half of the decade, regardless of what happens with Starliner or Starship in the meantime.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
